aftr_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME ( 022 )

Test Drive Meme #22

Hello, and welcome to LifeAftr! We're pleased that you're expressing an interest in the game. Here, you can test the waters, gauge how your character may fare in the world of LifeAftr, and even gain some in-game incentives, if you so choose.

In conjunction with our monthly Test Drive Meme, Reserves are now open! Applications will open on April 24th!

Two important notes:

1. LifeAftr's test drives take place on the island of Mu, which exists apart from the real world and possesses a dream-like quality that characters are innately aware of from the moment they appear on its shores. No need to panic or fret. Dreams are odd things, after all - and anything can happen in them. Why would anyone question where their mind chooses to wander in its sleep?

2. Due to the nature of Mu, threads in our test drive can not only be accepted as thread samples in your application, but can be accepted as game canon as well. In fact, certain choices your character makes in Mu have the potential to bear in-game consequences, largely in the form of test drive reward items.

To Dungeons Deep And Caverns Old
Caves are usually natural structures, though the one you find yourself within shows signs of manual influence. Brackets set into stones hold odd, glowing plants that illuminate the darkness with almost neon tones. Slightly sunken ceilings appear less threatening with the addition of great, wood beams to brace them upright, and traversing the more heavily inclined passages becomes far easier with the addition of roughly carved stairwells, worn smooth by the passage of many feet that have passed this way before you.

If it weren't for the way the ground tremors and rumbles underfoot, it would be a strange but otherwise pleasant scene. As it stands, that clamorous shaking only worsens the longer you stand here, rumbles like thunder vibrating through the stone in dense waves. An earthquake? A volcanic eruption?

...a cave-in?

Regardless of the cause, that final option is becoming more likely to occur in your general vicinity, the longer these tremors continue. It's time to go - and quickly, before that option is lost to you entirely. To the left, or right? Up, or down? If you look up, if you really squint, a few shimmering rays of sunlight glimmer far, far above your head from a natural skylight, if you think you can survive whatever's happening on the surface. Or you can keep forging your way downward, deeper, and hope that there's a stable little alcove set somewhere in the stone where you can wait this whole thing out. There really are innumerable options in this labyrinthian underground - and what awaits you around the next corner could be your salvation or your downfall.

Your very long downfall. So watch your step.

What's My Age Again?
Last month, adventurers found themselves dealing with the aftermath of a volcanic eruption... and the odd, transformative effects the volcanic ash seemed to have upon them. Ever curious of what occurs in the waking world, Mu has once again sought to emulate this oddity, reshaping its visitors to fit the images of their past - or even their potential future.

Waking up in your preteen body is the nightmare of many, but hardly the greatest oddity one might come across in a dream. Fifteen years younger, thirty years older - either way, you seem to be a tad displaced from who you are in the now. Those aware of this may find it something of a challenge, with vocal chords cracking for the first time in years, or creaking bones that don't move quite as fast as they used to. For others, however, nothing appears to be amiss at all; mentally or physically. Your memories may have leapt up to follow suit with these radical changes...or maybe you're an adult mind trying to cope with a toddler's body.

Perhaps this dream is precisely the chance you've been looking for. It's time to relive your childhood, or experience your golden years in peace. The calm, resort-like beachfront you find yourself upon will hinder neither. You could always go looking for answers - where you are, why this is happening to you - but there's no guarantee you'll be successful in locating any.

Maybe you'll get lucky, though, and find someone who believes you.

Worth A Thousand Words
The Chamber of Glyphs is a unique feature to LifeAftr, resting on the border between the waking world and Mu itself. An immense room of seemingly infinite length and height, every space, wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling, is occupied by images scratched into stone with chalk and charcoal.

The drawings themselves also appear to be- unique. Beams of light from a chalked-in sun mingle with illustrations raindrops to create a shimmering rainbow. Roughly drawn animals leap away from those who approach, startled out of stillness, and ancient battles play out in never-ending loops upon the floor. Everywhere one looks, drawings seem to shift upon the walls, disappearing and reappearing elsewhere, or mingling with images that had not been there prior.

A basin of endless chalk sits next to a firepit in the center of the room, ripe for the inspired artist to take to whatever blank canvas is available in the architecture - and there is always space available. If you're bored of watching the charcoal rabbits leap away to hide in green, chalky grass, perhaps there's a drawing of your own that's ready to come to life, a permanent fixture to the walls about you.

Or not. Take care with just what you decide to draw, as some images may not be content staying glued to flat surfaces. Outliners are perhaps exactly what one would expect them to be, and exactly what they sound like: something that's both out of bounds and out of line. Rogue outlines of chalk, charcoal, and paint, they break away from the surface upon which they were initially spawned to shamble after the living with often awkward shambling. Very few have been given the gift of depth, a fact that leaves most paper thin and prone to crumpling into scribbled heaps.

Though not the greatest of threats, it's best not to let them touch you. Those without depth or dimension may be quite eager to steal yours - and once you find yourself drawn into the two-dimensional spaces across the walls and floor, returning to normal will prove near impossible.

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The Cave
“Yo, whaddup?” says a figure calmly as he makes his languid way around a corner a little bit down the tunnel from you. He’s tall but not unnaturally so: the unnatural label is more suitably applied to his horns, sharp fangs, and the grey skin on his chest and his hand he has raised in a friendly(?) wave. Although maybe his skin colour is paint? His face is certainly painted, white and grey, the lines crisp across his eyes and nose. Does his calm smile look welcoming? Threatening? It really depends on how comfortable you are with alien creatures at this point.

His mouth is open again to say something else equally chill when the tremors return, shaking loose some crumbling stone chips from the ceiling of the tunnel between you. “Shiiizz,” he says instead, with a little more feeling to it. “I think maybe we should start movin’ down away from this noise.” He gestures with one of his horns back the way he came from. “Save the talkin’ for on the way. That aight with you, fam?” He doesn’t seem particularly urgent about it.

D’baby
There’s something about the size of a dark purple Subway sandwich on the sand a fair distance away from you. It’s right at the edge of where the surf washes over the beach…and eventually you realise: it’s moving. On six black legs emerging from its sides. Actually, it has, like, a little grey head, with hair and little horns on it, and shiny little purple buggy eyes. It’s some sort of immense grub with a bug baby head. It’s…probably awful? Or maybe you think it’s cute? Or gross?

No matter what you start out thinking, the moment it’s close enough to see you, you suddenly feel this huge presence about it. If you have some manner of mental guards or protection, it’s just a baby. It’s still just the same grub baby thing. Nothing has really changed except you guess something weird almost just happened. If you don’t… This is the most wonderful baby you have ever seen. You love it. You love this weird larva. You’ve only just met it but if anything happened to it you would kill everyone on this beach and then yourself.

The grub continues to approach you, skittering along the beach, staring at you with intense, unblinking eyes.

Most importantly, in Ginko's opinion, this thing is bizarre. Definitely a larva of some kind, but the head is weirdly humanoid? It's just... just a bug baby.

It's weird as hell, but also definitely kind of cute - and the balance of each doesn't really matter too much, because either way Ginko is officially fascinated. He crouches down to get a better look as it skitters forward, taking only a cursory glance over it to make sure there are no obvious horrible stingers or anything. "...What are you, huh?"

The wiggler doesn't move back away when Ginko crouches, but it does stop in its tracks, a foot away, to stare up at him for a bit.

It goes click. It's not particularly clear HOW it went click, because it's had a little doofy sharp-toothed smile on its little baby face this whole time and it doesn't let up on that in order to stare up at Ginko. The front half of its sandwich-body lifts up so it can get a better look and it doesn't...seem? To have stingers? Who ever knows with bugs though, right? Maybe its little black legs ARE stingers.

Yeah, Ginko... can barely begin to make sense of this thing's physiology. Not that he has room to talk, being a literal monster and all that, but that baby face on a bug is pretty weird.

He supposes he'd better be safe about this, but... it's not like he can leave this guy unattended when who knows what might be running around here. So, making up his mind, he grabs the edge of the poncho he's been wearing for sun protection and pulls it over his head. He lays it out in front of the little grub, still holding onto the edges to make kind of a hammock that touches the ground. "C'mon over here."

Just like with Karako, Ginko benefits by being monstrous and thematically white. So while the grub does stumble back slightly when Ginko starts doing things with his poncho, it cautiously looks at it placed on the ground (cautious, but still smiling) and wanders forward the remaining foot of space between them to...

...bite it. It bites the poncho. It's a little baby and it wants to put the new thing in its pointy mouth.

...Well, he guesses he can't be too surprised. He'd already figured this whatever-it-is seemed pretty curious. Ginko snorts quietly and tugs at the poncho a little as the larva bites it, though not with any real intention to take it away. "It's just cloth, not too exciting."

And it probably tastes like literal dirt.

[Karako is unintimidated by Marvus' grey skin and befanged smile; he is astonished, at first, just struck fucking speechless by the sudden appearance of a fellow troll, emerging from the dark of the tunnel like a fucking chudoo apparition.

Then he remembers, and understands: this is a dream.

Is it a shared dream? Is this the actual motherfucking Marvus Xoloto, wandering into his own dreamscape? It doesn't feel un real, like a normal dream... he comes sprinting up, stopping just next to the celebtrity apparition and falling into step next to him, trotting along at a jog to keep up and staring up at Marvus' face with an uncommonly piercing intensity.]

Honk? Honk?

[Lot of people show up at clown church. Intermittent and varying amounts, can't expect mo'fxxkers to remember every time church is on. Can't expect Marvus himself to come and get mobbed by the occasional big time crowds every time. He does faintly recognise this lil guy, though, hunkering down out of the way of the pushiest juggs, he assumes. Solid headgear, at least. Must need his 'rail to do his horn paint.]

Hey. [He glances down at the wiggler, still smiling. Vow of silence, maybe?] You want me to slow down, buddy, or you wanna latch on? Ain't no matter to me either way, this all seems to occupy a space of lesser reality than normal, knowmsayin'? Still better to not get crushed though, lol.

[Karako does not know what Marvus is saying, at all, except the very beginning and very end, the latter of which sounds very reasonable.

But truthfully Marvus could be saying anything, including absolute nonsense, and it still wouldn't be possible for Karako's eyes to get any wider.

He basically trips over himself falling into step at Marvus' pace--his legs might be short, but he has sweeps of practise keeping up with other, more predictably proportioned trolls.]

Honk! Honk!!

[He agrees almost as quickly as his legs are moving, still trying to wrap his head around the presence of this particular Troll, even in his dreams.]

TEST DRIVE MEME ( 022 )

Marvus Xoloto | Homestuck

D'BABY

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